The core message in the passage is that true glory is found not in human wisdom or achievement, but in the Lord, specifically through the power and wisdom of God demonstrated in the cross of Jesus Christ. The sermon contrasts the world's view of the cross as foolishness with its reality as the power of God for salvation, emphasizing that God chooses the weak and foolish things of the world to confound the wise and mighty. It highlights that the gospel's true essence lies in addressing the root of sin's offense against God, not merely its symptoms, and that salvation is a present and future reality for those who trust in Christ. The sermon concludes by urging listeners to recognize their position in either the perishing or the saved group, and to place their confidence solely in the redemptive power of the cross.
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In our Bibles this morning to First Corinthians chapter one and we want to begin our reading at verse eighteen. First Corinthians chapter one and verse eighteen and we want to read down through chapter two and verse five. This is a glorious portion of the word of God. Verse eighteen for the preaching of the cross is to them who are perishing foolishness, but unto us which are saved or are being saved. In the original, it's a present participle. Those perishing and those being saved, it is the power of God.
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world?Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness. But to them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, And God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised.Hath God chosen, yea, and things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence.
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption that according as it is written he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord and we've taken that last verse of chapter one and made it the key verse for the first four chapters of first Corinthians because this is the truth and the thrust of the apostle as another translation puts it he who boasts let him boast in the Lord. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words a man's wisdom. but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. I'm going to ask our brother Paul Barker, if he will, to lead us into the presence of the Lord this morning. Brother Paul, because many of our owner away, there are a number at Camp Hope.
Not at Camp Hope, but in Augusta for the Youth Conference. And others are up north. And some at the coast. What a delight to see this good number out this morning for the Word of God. Now let's pray. Loving Father, now as we open thy word together, we pray that we may hear thy voice. Speak to us in this hour. Deliver us from anything that would detract. May the Spirit of God work in us, that which is well pleasing in thy sight. For Jesus' sake, amen.
He who boasts, the Word of God says, let him boast in the Lord. The basic problem at Corinth was that they were boasting in human achievement. They were man-centered rather than God-centered. They were imbibed with the importance of men. And this specific disease Paul deals with in First Corinthians. Now in the first seventeen verses of First Corinthians that we have already covered, Paul deals with this tendency of man-centeredness by declaring what the church of Jesus Christ is.
For he writes to the church of God. which happens to be at Corinth. And he describes what the Church of God is. He manifests the fact and he relates that it was founded on divinely revealed truth and that it originated in divinely provided grace and that it consists of divinely sanctified and called believers, that it is characterized by a divinely enriched and gifted members, that it is destined for a divinely secure future, and that it is united by a divinely created unity.
All through Paul's teaching on the church, his great emphasis has been the initiative of God in salvation. God's sovereignty in all his dealings and God's sovereign purpose in his church. Now in the passage before us this morning, the apostle shows that the spirit of man-centeredness is a gross distortion of the very essence of the Christian gospel that we proclaim. For the gospel seeks to exalt God and humble man. In fact, it is a distortion of the whole manner in which God reveals His wisdom and displays His power.
And God reveals His wisdom, beloved, and displays His power with a jealous regard for the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and for His own glory. From verse eighteen in chapter one, And straight on through chapter two, Paul touches upon four areas of truth where God exalts His glory and He excludes human boasting. And I want you to notice them. Now we're not going to cover all this this morning, but I'm going to give you the outline straight on through chapter two.
God exalts His glory and He excludes human wisdom. verse eighteen through verse twenty five of chapter one in the nature of the gospel and then in verses twenty six through thirty one in the membership of his church at Corinth he looks at them and he says you see your calling brethren not many mighty not many noble are called just take a look at yourselves and what an exhibition of divine glory What a delight to see the exaltation of his grace. And then in chapter two, verses one through five, we have his glory and the exclusion of human boasting in the ministry of his servants.
For he says, when I came to Corinth, I came not with excellency of speech or wisdom declaring the testimony of God. And then finally, in verse six through verse sixteen of chapter two, we have it in the revelation of his truth. in the revelation of God's truth. And when you get to the end of chapter two, he says, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness unto him. And in the revelation of his truth, he writes then in the following verse to those who are spiritual made alive by the Spirit of God. Now this morning we're dealing with the nature of the gospel. In chapter one, verses eighteen through twenty five.
Now the connecting verse here is verse seventeen. For in verse seventeen, where we closed last week, Paul says, For Christ did not send me, or Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel. Not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. So you see verse seventeen is a definite connecting verse. The Corinthians were using baptism as a catalyst for being fragmented in the church. They were arguing over who had baptized them and their little groups centered about this.
There was a schism in the church and that word schism means a rent. or a tear. And we get another word from that word schism. It is the word sect. And a sect means something that has been torn off. And baptism had become the catalyst for this very division that existed in the church. And it existed because of a man-centeredness. Paul said very definitely, Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach a gospel. And then he goes on. to tell how God had displayed His wisdom and His power in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the gospel is described in verse eighteen as the word or the message of the cross. For the preaching of the cross is to them who perish foolishness, but unto us who are saved, it is the power of God. Nowhere is the glory of God more fully displayed, or more jealously guarded, than in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Charles Hodge, that great expositor, in his exposition of the epistle to the Corinthians, this is what he says concerning verse eighteen. And I'm going to quote it to you, and I quote, The message of the cross refers to the doctrine of salvation in all its fullness, through the crucifixion of the Son of God as a sacrifice for the sins of men.
It is God's whole method of saving sinners by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Nothing so effectually humbles the natural man and is therefore a stumbling block to him as the full revelation of that gospel. And, beloved, we need to consider that. Our text says, For the preaching of the cross is to them who are perishing foolishness. But unto us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
Now, beloved, as the cross is a full revelation of the gospel, may I say, honestly, it is possible to so manipulate the message of the gospel. that we evacuated of its evidence and we rid it of that stumbling block or scandal on as we have it here in our text. Now it is possible even today as they did at Corinth to put an emphasis on the gospel which merely invites people to come to Jesus to sort out their problems and to make them happy.
And much of this is done today. You see, when we hear this, God is not glorified and neither is man humbled. And that's serious. In the proclamation of the gospel today, as multitudes hear it, God is not glorified and neither is man humbled. When our consideration, beloved, is upon calling people to Jesus, Because he is the one who can sort out all your problems. And he can take care of all your confusions. Are you unhappy? Come to Jesus. Are you dissatisfied?
Come to Jesus. Are you empty and mixed up? Then come to Jesus. He will deal with this problem for you. What's wrong with all this? Have you thought it through? What is wrong with that kind of a message? I'll tell you what's wrong with it. It puts man at the center instead of God. It makes God man's servant, which is totally wrong. For you see, what is really important here? We are not really dealing with a real problem.
We're not dealing with the real problem of man, nor are we dealing with the essence of the gospel of the cross of Christ. The essence of the gospel, beloved, is not dealing with the symptoms of the disease. When John the Baptist came and he cried, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He said, The axes laid at the root of the tree. And you know most of us, are content with lopping off a few branches of the tree. And you know you hear a lot of preachers preach about things.
And we like to lop off the branch of adultery. We'd like to lop off the branch of smoking. We'd like to lop off the branch of drinking. And I have no time for those things. But beloved, God has condemned the whole tree. The whole tree is condemned for the flesh profiteth nothing. In my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Beloved, do I believe this? The axe is laid at the root of the tree. And the message of the cross, beloved, doesn't deal with the symptoms of the disease.
The message of the cross goes to the very heart of the disease. It goes to the root. You see, it's that human dilemma that man is depraved, that the cross is the answer for. Now the problem is not, beloved, what does sin do to me? And I beloved, what sin does to me is terrible. Do you ever deal with an alcoholic? When you deal with an alcoholic and you realize what sin does to an individual. Oh, it's bad. But that's not the answer, beloved.
The answer is not what does sin do to other people. And you can't be preaching the gospel very long until you get involved in situations where you see what sin has done to others. Take a look at an alcoholic's family. I listened to a program on TV the other night on the Channel Four, and they had men on there who were alcoholics, children of alcoholics, and they told how they were brought up and the awfulness of the wretched conditions of the home, and they turned out to be the very same thing.
It's not what sin does to me. Nor is it what sin does to other people. But the human dilemma, beloved, is what sin does to God. What our sin has done to God. And this, beloved, is where Paul begins. This is where he begins in his answer to the gospel in the Roman epistle. Chapter one, verse sixteen says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. To the Jew first and also to the Gentile. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as if he's written unjustly by faith.
Because for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Here's where Paul begins with the gospel. What our sin has done to God. Beloved, this desperate seriousness of man's condition is in this. He has no ability whatsoever to do anything about his condition. He is totally unable to do a thing. And beloved, nowhere.
is the glory of God so revealed, and His wisdom so displayed, as in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. His holiness is manifested. His love is perceived. His justice is satisfied. His truth, His compassion, His grace. His wisdom and His power are displayed there, as they are nowhere else in the whole of the universe. Now, beloved, it is precisely because God has on the cross displayed His own glory and His own wisdom, and He has specifically excluded any opportunity for human pride.
The cross thereby becomes an offense to the natural man. And the natural man is always trying to remove the offense of the cross. The cross, beloved, is offensive. And the gospel, beloved, deals with the very heart of the problem. And lying at the core of the gospel is what we could call the offense of the cross. It is found in that word foolishness in verse eighteen. It is the Greek word scandalon.
For the preaching of the cross is to them who perish foolishness, but unto us who are being saved. It is the power of God. Now, whether to the Greek pride of intellect or to the Jewish pride of religion, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but unto us who are being saved. It's the power of God. You notice there are two groups here. There are two groups. The cross of Christ becomes the divider. Two groups. And he speaks of those who are being saved. And he speaks of those who are perishing. Now the verbs here are really present participles.
And they describe an incomplete process. When you speak of our salvation, we speak of salvation past, we think of salvation present, we think of salvation future. God dealt in salvation past when I was saved with a penalty of my sin. Day by day in the Christian life he's dealing with a power of sin and he's giving us victory over sin. He's delivering us from sin's power. as Wesley put it in his hymn, he breaks the power of canceled sin. He sets the prisoner free. And then in the future, oh, there's a day coming when he's going to deliver us from the very presence of sin.
It's spoken of in Ephesians four, verse thirty, as the day of redemption. We have been sealed until the day of redemption. Our text here speaks of those who are perishing and of those who are saved. Those who are perishing, they are perishing now. They are lost now. He that believeth not is condemned already. They are lost now. And they are moving forward to a day of final destruction. And those who are being saved, they are being called into the fellowship of His Son now.
but they are moving towards a final day of salvation. And those of us who have joined this morning in the singing of the praises of God and can sing from the heart that we are His, who is on the Lord's side, who will serve the King? You see, we're moving toward a final day of salvation when we're going to be delivered from the very presence of sin but beloved these two groups here they're in those groups and you're either in one or the other and it is your relation to the message of the cross that puts you in either group not church membership not baptism that they boasted of at Corinth but it's your relationship to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ those who perished and those who are perishing They perish because the message of the cross is foolishness unto them.
Now that word for foolishness is an interesting word. It is closely related to the English word moron. And in other words, what they were saying is moronic. to accept the message of the cross. But on the other hand, friends, those who are perishing may think it's moronic. They may think we're foolish and they may think we're morons because we have trusted Christ. And we believe in salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
But I'll tell you this, unto us who are saved, It is the power and the wisdom of God. Now in many ways, beloved, that is the deepest conviction that the apostle had in his life. That the power of God, beloved, resides in the message of the gospel. More specifically, it is the gospel, the message that focuses on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans one, sixteen, he said, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe us.
Now, this is a place where God's power is supremely revealed. Have you grasped this, beloved? If you want to talk about the power of God, the place where it is supremely revealed is in the message of the gospel. It's not seen in creation and in preservation. Now I tell you if you've ever been at the coast and you've seen a hurricane coming. Mr. Braxton was telling me about when Hurricane Hazel came through how this man saw this wall water just coming and you talk about power. He had a business down there at the coast and it took everything in his pathway.
You talk about such power in creation and in preservation. And that's only at one little place, the preservation of the universe, that God keeps his big universe going and none of the planets crash into each other. It's one of the great illustrations of his power, but there's something far greater. It's the power of the cross, not in creation, not in the preservation. but in the redemption of sinners. You and me are redemption through the precious blood of Jesus Christ our Lord. Here is a demonstration of his power. I love it.
It is in the gospel where the power of God is known. It is in the gospel where the arm of the Lord is made bare. Isaiah fifty-three verse one, who hath believed our message? Who have believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? It's revealed, beloved, in the gospel. Now, beloved, we have to recover this truth. What truth? Confidence in the gospel. That's the message. Paul's confidence was not in gimmicks. Paul's confidence was not in...
being able to persuade men by his intellect. He wasn't interested in psychology. He was interested in the message of a cross. And, beloved, if we need to recover anything in the church today, it is confidence in the message we proclaim. The gospel of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Paul's great principle is simply wisdom and power for salvation are not found in man, but in God. It's not in man.
It is in God. And the wisdom of God and the power of God are declared in the gospel. Human wisdom and human power are excluded. Whenever I think of this, I'm reminded of the drunk who came up to D.L. Moody. You know, a lot of people put great emphasis on men, and it's wrong no matter who the man is, whether it's a great man like Warren Rearsby or someone else, or John MacArthur, or J.
Vernon McGee, or John Wiesinger, it's easy to be man-centered and we have to guard it. A drunk came up to D.L. Moody one day looking for a handout. Oh, he says, Mr. Moody, I'm one of your converts. He said, you sure look like it. You're certainly not the Lord. Beloved, it is the Lord who saves and not man. Now, Paul supports this principle in three ways. He supports this principle In verse nineteen, biblically. Second, he supports this principle in verse twenty contemporarily. And he supports this principle in verse twenty one, theologically.
Now, what I want to do this morning is deal with this principle biblically. And that's the only one that will have time to examine biblically. How does he do it? You notice in verse twenty-one, or verse nineteen, excuse me, for it is written. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Paul always is interested in being biblical. Is this what the Word of God teaches? Is it founded on the Word of God? And time and again in this section, he uses the expression, it is written.
He does so in verse nineteen. When you look over at verse thirty-one, he says, That according is it is written. He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. Notice chapter two, verse nine. But as it is written, I hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man. in chapter three in verse nineteen he says in the middle of the verse or it is written it is written it is written now here in verse nineteen the apostle points to a verse in Isaiah chapter twenty nine and verse fourteen and he points friends from that verse to God's consistent practice in Scripture of bypassing human wisdom and cleverness.
Man is ever out to exert his own wisdom and to make a display of it. But God always sets it aside. In verse nineteen he says, I will destroy. In Isaiah chapter twenty nine verse fourteen he says, I will refuse, I will reject, I will set aside the intelligence of the intelligence. That's the way the NIV puts it. Now what Paul is doing when he says it is written, beloved, is so important. And if we miss it, if we miss it, what is he doing? He is pointing from the scriptures that Israel was never saved by human ingenuity.
They had to learn a lesson. Stand still. and see the salvation of the Lord. When Israel came to the borders of the Red Sea, with the mountains on either side and the Egyptian army pursuing them, Moses had to say, I don't know what to do. Stand still and see the salvation of God. It is not human ingenuity, beloved. We may think we have the formula down A, B, C on how to lead a soul to Christ. We may think we know all these things, but they love it unless God the Holy Spirit works.
We can put men through the four spiritual laws, the ABCs, and we can get a confession out of them, and we can do all these things, but they're just as lost as they were before. Let's be honest. God is speaking to Paul. And he's showing for us the fact that he never depended on human ingenuity. But Israel had to learn to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And beloved, if we're going to see a revival in our time, we're going to have to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.
That's the hardest thing in the world to do. Well, we're running here and there and we're doing our little bit here and we're doing our little bit there and we're so occupied doing this and that. And everything is man-centered instead of being God-centered. Now, the quotation from Isaiah is quite important. If you study the context of that quotation, it refers to that occasion when Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, was assaulting Judah. And he told them, and they were surrounding the walls of Jerusalem, that they were going to conquer the city. And God, through the prophet Isaiah, he declared that they need not worry, for the king's plan would certainly fail.
God told them that, through the prophet. Now, the reason that the king's plan would fail, it was not beloved because of the strength of Judah's army. neither because of the strategy of Judas King, nor because of the subtleties of the King's advisors. God is so anxious to display this that he takes the wisdom of man and he rejects it. And you remember what happened. A hundred eighty-six thousand Syrians died in one night. God delivered his people. Beloved, when God says, it is written, this is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who is speaking.
This is the God whose gospel we are proclaiming. Now, Lenske, the commentator, in his commentary on First Corinthians, he says this, the wisdom that Hezekiah's advisers was exactly like that, which was trying to magnify itself in the Church of Corinth. It was not from God, it was from godless thinking. Godless thinking, beloved, the only way that we can be delivered by God's grace from being infected by worldly thinking.
in relation to the gospel is by soaking ourselves in the word of God. May I ask you sincerely, are you spending time with this book? Paul says, it is written. And then he goes to that obscure verse, as it were, in the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter twenty-nine and verse fourteen. And he illustrates the fact that God's power God's wisdom of glory is manifested in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ in that cross on Calvary's Hill. For the preaching of the cross is to them who are perishing foolishness.
But unto us who are being saved, it is the power of God. I'd like to close this morning by asking a few questions. Number one, what else than the gospel? could have ever formed a believing church in the vile city of Corinth. When you consider the vileness of Corinth, what else but the grace of God and the gospel could have done it? Tell me. What else? Think it through, and beloved, there isn't anything else which will deliver our sinful nation or our sinful neighbors than the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And in order for you to proclaim it, you have to soak yourself in Holy Scripture. It is written. It is written. It is written. Nothing else will do. The second thing our question I would like to ask you is this. What else can accomplish the work of God anywhere else in the world? The third question I want to ask is this. Which group are you in? Our text spoke of two groups. Which group are you in?
Are you in that group that is moving and that is moving far more rapidly than we think? And he's moving toward that final day of judgment. You know, when I was fifteen or sixteen or eighteen years of age, I thought, boy, I have a long time to live. Boy, it's been just like a snap of a finger. It's gone. Oh, it isn't gone yet, you know. I don't want to appear to be too ancient. But nevertheless, it's gone and it goes quickly. And if you're here this morning and you're fourth year older, you'll all confess to the same thing. It moves rapidly. And we're moving rapidly toward the final day of judgment.
And my friend, if you're in the class that's perishing, there's only one remedy. You can't remedy it yourself. You can't make a change unless that change is wrought inwardly in you by God the Holy Spirit. All my friends flee to the cross. to the mercy of God. Now, friends, are you in that class that's moving toward that day of final salvation? Those of us who are being saved, the cross is the power of God and the wisdom of God. We sing a hymn occasionally at the Lord's Supper.
It's in that black hymns of worship and remembrance, page number one hundred eighty-two. And the second stanza says concerning the cross, Hear every heart that feels the plague of sin, yet knows that deep, mysterious joy of peace with God within. Oh, do you feel the plague of sin? Sin is not what you do to yourself. That's not the bad part. Oh, it's bad enough, friend. It's not what you do to others. And no man lives to himself and no man dies to himself.
It's what you do to God. And here on the cross on Calvary Hill, the lovely Savior satisfies to his death on the cross the demands of divine holiness and justice. And there's freedom for the slave who comes and bows to Jesus Christ the Lord. Oh, my friend, have you come? Have you come? I ask you, you can never have will you come. There's no other remedy. Here is God's power. Here is God's wisdom. Here is a display of the glory of God. Beloved, when God presents you in a coming day before the throne of His glory without spot or without wrinkle or any such thing, Then you'll know the power that was manifested by God in delivering you from your sins and setting you on the rock Christ Jesus.
My friend, which group are you in? Now you can't be in both. You're in one or the other. We had a man in Lebanon, Pennsylvania when I was there at Grace Chapel. His name was Ray Long. God had saved him, and he saved him in a most unusual way. I'm not going to go into the details of it. You know, Ray was making his money, playing an organ. He had a Hammond organ and he was playing his organ in a nightclub every night.
That's how I made his money. And I remember going to see Ray after he had been in an accident and he said, would you like me to play the organ for you? Oh, I said, I'd love to hear it. Do you want to know something? I got near his organ and it smelled like a bar room. His organ had the smell of the world.